One iPod Song Away

Published December 4, 2012

One of my first client projects using the C300 – shot for Fordham Law Admissions and centered around admitted students who met for the first time at a barbecue this summer. The piece looks at why they chose the Law School, their interests, and what makes the school unique:

**Update – 03/03/15: This is a new 2015 version of the video which includes new candid b-roll and footage of the new law school building.**

The goal in the project was to create a light fun video. The stylistic approach was to keep it centered around the event where the interviews were filmed – that way it would have an inherent structure and it was a way of working within the on-site limitations, aka the background noise.

The plaza is essentially a concrete canyon. Mix in a few hundred people, throw in a dash of ambient music, and dump in a heap of construction clangs (one side of the plaza has a new building going up,) and that was the situation. Since the noise could not be controlled I wanted to visually show it in context. In other words, set up the scenario within the piece (e.g. the students walking in) so that the presence of the background noise makes sense.

In the end, while I would prefer the background noise to be a bit less I’m happy with how well the interviews came out. Subjects were recorded via a shotgun mic (within 1′-3′ of them) run straight into the C300.

The project includes handheld, monopod, and tripod work. To fit with the more casual approach most of the interviews were filmed with the monopod. Lighting was kept to a bare minimum, taking advantage of the C300’s dynamic range in C-log mode (~12 stops.) The first interview used a 1×1 Litepanel for fill (it’s also the only clip in the film shot with the 5D Mark III) and the last interview utilized a large reflector to add some sculpting to the subject. The rest of the interviews are available light.